Friday, April 17, 2015

All over Iran,
there can be seen billboards and graffiti saying, “Death to America,”
and “Death to Israel.”
It is understandable. Every Iranian
school kid knows about 1953.

I get angry when Israel, or any other country,
interferes with our American political process.
It upsets me when a presidential candidate responds to a question
concerning our foreign policy by saying, “Well, first, I would call my friend
Bibi and ask him what he wants us to do.”
I cringe when Congress treats the Prime Minister of Israel with more
respect than they treat our own president.

I get especially angry when Israel’s
Benjamin Netanyahu urges our Congress to invade Iran
because “Iran
supports terrorism.” Of course, the
terrorist organizations he has in mind are Hezbollah and Hamas. However, most people in the world know that Hezbollah
came into being to protect its people from Israel’s
aggression and fight against Israel’s
war to occupy the southern part of Lebanon
on order to access the LitaniRiver. Likewise, Hamas came into being to defend the people of
Palestine, especially those in Gaza,
from Israel’s
brutal occupation and imperialism.

Because I know a bit of this history, I am prone to say,
“Damn Israel.” But in my most vicious
moments, I do not wish for Israel
to be literally damned, for all its citizens to die and burn in hell
forever. It is just an expression of my
anger and frustration. But I would never support an invasion of Israel to bring
it about.

Every student in Iran
knows that in 1953, the United
States, primarily through the CIA, overthrew
Mohammad Mossadegh, their democratically elected Prime Minister. He had upped the
price of oil to the west in order to offer education and medical care for his
own people. So, we, the United States,
had him removed from office. We chose Reza
Pahlavi as the Shah, to rule as a king. As such, he lived in extreme opulence
while keeping the people powerless, poor and under control by fear, murder and
torture. When salafist students
demonstrated against the Shah’s policies, his SAVAK troops killed them by the
hundreds, all the time being supported by the U.S. Suddenly, the students began shouting, “Death
to America,”
and took over our embassy. Most
Americans could not understand.

But, remember, those
students did not kill a single one of the 52 hostages and eventually let them
come home. So, what does “Death to America” mean to the Iranian?

Riding through Tehran
in a taxi, Rick Steves heard the driver suddenly yell, ”Death to traffic.” Steves
wondered what that was all about. The
people of Iran
would also say, “Death to summer heat.”
But they did not set out on an invasion plan to kill the traffic or the
heat. “Death to… “ is an expression of
anger and frustration, of exasperation and disgust. But, it’s just an expression. That’s all. In
our culture we would say, “Damn this traffic,” or “damn teen aged drivers.” Or
even “damn it is hot.” But we would
never lay out a plan to kill teen aged drivers and have them suffer in hell because of their driving manners. “Damn” is an expression of
frustration with annoying things beyond our control.

Our cultures are different. Iran is a religious culture. From dress codes to gender segregation, public
life is regulated and enforced by religious law. Their billboards advertise religious
slogans. Murals on the sides of their building praise their leaders and
martyrs. On the other hand, we, in the
west, live in a consumer culture.
Every blank space is filled with commercial ads. “Buy this or you will never be
happy.” Iranians sacrifice their freedom
to religion. We have our freedom
squelched by Wall Street and multinational corporations. Their younger generation would probably choose
to loosen the regulations a bit. But, would they swap their culture for ours? I
wonder.[1]

All of this is to say, I hope our political leaders do not
lead us into a war with Iran
because we do not understand the semantics of their culture. We did that in 2003. We allowed ourselves to
be coaxed into a war with Iraq
and we are still suffering the consequences.
And what did we get for it? More
people than ever who hate us, including ISIS.

Benjamin Netanyahu says that Iran is the most dangerous nation
earth. He doesn’t say why, only that we
should be afraid. Wiser minds say that the flip side of fear is understanding.[2] With
the stakes so high, surely, it is worth a try.

Thomas Are

April 17, 2015

[1] I
confess that I am not an authority on Iran. I have never been there. I am
not an ambassador nor have I served on any foreign relations committee.
However, I have read enough books and listened to enough lectures to know that Iran is
misunderstood and demonized by most Americans and we do so at our own
peril.

[2] I have
been helped in my understanding of Iran by Rick Steves’ IRAN, a 1-hour Public
Television Special, especially his lecture on personal impressions, (2009, Back
Door Productions. Also by several books,
including: Flint and Hillary Mann Leverett, Going
to Tahran, Peter Beinard, The
Good Fight, and Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

On March 24th, an airliner carrying 150 people
crashed into the French Alps. Immediately, the announcement of this tragedy
dominated the news all around the world.
For over a week now, it has been investigated and analyzed from every
possible angle. The most horrendous aspect of this story is that the co-pilot,
Andreas Lubitz, locked the pilot out of the cockpit, and deliberately crashed
the plane. Every day and every night
since then, the airline, medical and news industries have been pulling their
hair out asking how this could have happened. How could anyone so mentally
unstable be allowed to be put in a position where he could cause such a horrifying
act of terror? Could the people who knew him not see that he was mentally ill?

That question must run through the mind of every passenger stepping
on a plane.

We follow the airline accidents and hijackings because we
know that it could happen to us. (However, statistics show that the odds of
being killed in an airline crash is 1 in 9 million, which means that you would
have to fly every day for 19,000 years to die in an airline crash.) However, on
the other hand, it is happening every day to the Palestinians,
and it has been happening for over sixty years.

So, my question has a much broader scope and far greater consequences:

Is Benjamin Netanyahu
mentally ill?

He is obviously paranoid. He caused, not just the crash of one
plane full of people, but he deliberately caused the crash of tons
of bombs into buildings full of men, women and children. He dropped burning white phosphorus on
defenseless people. He
blew up power plants, schools, mosques, hospitals and homes leaving thousands
dead and tens of thousands destitute. We
are quick to question the sanity of a 28 year old co-pilot who deliberately
caused the death of 149 innocent people. But, who questions the sanity of a man
who babbled one thing on Monday and the exact opposite the next day and then announced
that both statements were the same. Apparently, in his mind, “there will never
be a Palestinian state” and “I still support a Palestinian state,” were not
contradictory.

And now, Netanyahu is panic stricken over the possible
easing of tensions between the US
and Iran.
On March 30 he actually said, “an emerging agreement in Lausanne
sends a message that there is no price for aggression, – on the contrary, Iran
gets a prize for its aggression.” [1] Really?
Strange that he has nothing to say about the pass he gets for Israel’s aggression against the people of Palestine as he holds up
the occupation of Palestinian land and
water like a prize. I say again, no rational thinking person could possibly
miss the “transference” of his conduct unto the perceived actions of his
victims. A healthy mind would at least
recognize that others would see the distortion.

But, what can we expect from a paranoid leader of a paranoid
nation but a paranoid response to any situation?

Co-pilot Lubitz, deliberately killed 149 innocent people and
the media is 24/7 proving that he was mentally unstable. Netanyahu deliberately killed … only God
knows how many … but thousands and thousands.
Count the wars he has hyped and it could be counted into the millions. I
think Netanyahu is showing signs of mental instability and should never have been
put into a position of power.

Thomas Are

April 2, 2015

[1] Earmon
Murphy, Day before deadline, Iran
negotiations coming “down to the wire’ and Netanyahu still hopes to play
spoiler., Mondoweiss, March 30,
2015

Thomas L. Are

I preached for forty three years in the Presbyterian Church before retiring. If anyone would ever refer to me as a Liberation Theologian, I would be pleased. I started blogging several years ago to express my political and religious concern for justice, especially justice for the Palestinians.